Alone in the Dark (1982 film)
Encyclopedia
Alone in the Dark is a 1982 slasher film
directed by Jack Sholder
. It was the director's debut film and was the first motion picture to be released by New Line Cinema
. The film's tagline is: "They're out... for blood! Don't let them find you--"
. Dr. Bain operates the haven through very lenient methods. He calls the patients "voyagers" and treats them kindly; he keeps the most dangerous voyagers on the 3rd floor contained with electrically-activated security mechanisms instead of bars, and only keeps one guard on duty.
The aforementioned 3rd floor patients (paranoid
former POW Frank Hawkes, pyromaniac preacher
Byron Sutcliff, obese child molester Ronald Elster, and homicidal
maniac John "Bleeder" Skaggs) initially treat Dr. Potter with mixed hostility. At their first meeting, Hawkes nearly explodes at Dr. Potter as he leaves, but calms down before giving a reason for his outburst.
At night, however, Hawkes states to the others that "the new doctor killed Harry Merton, and now he wants to kill us". The others believe him (aside from Skaggs, who hides his face throughout the film, this time burying his head in his pillow), and agree to help him kill Dr. Potter. They plan to do this on the outside.
Ray Curtis, the sole guard on the 3rd floor, overhears the foursome's scheme and tells Dr. Potter about it, but Dr. Potter dismisses Curtis' fears as unwarranted. However, Curtis remains convinced of the danger.
One day, in the hospital's courtyard where Dr. Bain is counseling his patients, Sutcliff sets his coat on fire (using matches Dr. Bain gave him during his treatment) and Dr. Bain manages to quell Sutcliff's fit by threatening to "split him down the middle."
Meanwhile, Dr. Potter tries to talk with Frank Hawkes about his connection to Dr. Harry Merton, and about the plan Ray Curtis overheard. Hawkes reminds Dr. Potter that he shouldn't take Curtis' warnings seriously.
Another day, while waiting in Dr. Potter's office, Ronald Elster looks through the Dr. Potter's unopened mail to find his home address and sees a picture of the doctor's young daughter.
At the Dr. Potter household, Dan Potter lives with his free-spirited wife Nell and their precocious daughter Lila, as well as his sister Toni, who comes to visit following a successful treatment for a mental breakdown.
Toni takes Dan and Nell to see The Sick Fucks at a nightclub, much to Dan's displeasure. As they play the city's power shuts down. Dan at the time is glad. Meanwhile, the men on the 3rd floor wake up and begin to carry out their plan. Sutcliffe and Elster kill Curtis and the four escape in a night doctor's car. They drive to a store in the middle of a raid to pick up new clothes and weapons. Skaggs kills an innocent bystander by splattering out his insides and runs away, the others take the murdered man's van and drive off.
The next day, Dan arrives at the hospital to learn from Bain about the four escaped patients and of the people they killed. With the power still off from an apparent statewide power outage, Dan has to report to the police about the four maniacs on the loose. In a nearby neighborhood, Hawkes, Preacher, and Ronald are driving around and torment a bicycle messenger
and when the man mouths off to them, calling Hawkes an "asshole" the enraged Hawkes throws the van in reverse and plows into the bicycle messenger.
At Dan's house, Preacher arrives wearing the bicycle messenger's hat and uniform telling Nell that he has a telegram for the doctor. Nell offers to take it, but Preacher says that he will come back later. Nell is slightly spooked by Preacher's strange behavior. After Preacher leaves, Toni tells Nell to accompany her to an anti-nuclear protest that is going on in town.
A little later, after Toni and Nell leave, Lyla comes home to a vacant house, and Ronald is there, claiming to be her babysitter. Ronald is friendly towards Lyla, but she is a little unsettled by his strange behavior. Ronald suggests going to Lyla's room to show her how to make different origami
shapes.
Meanwhile, Toni and Nell are in jail having been arrested with dozens of other protesters. Toni meets a certain Tom Smith, one of those arrested with them during the demonstration. When it is time to make their phone calls, Tom lets Toni use his turn at the phone where she calls Dan at the hospital to tell them where they are and to bail them out. Dan then calls Bunky (Carol Levy), Lyla's real babysitter, to go over to his house to make sure that Lyla is okay. Bunky arrives at Dan's house and after looking around, finds Lyla asleep on her bed. Bunky then calls her boyfriend, Billy, and invites him to come on over.
Billy arrives a short while later and Bunky invites him up to the master bedroom so they can have sex. While making out on the bed, Bunky hears a noise coming from the closet and asks Billy to check it out. He is pulled under the bed and a knife is jabbed through the bed several times at Bunky who is able to dodge it. Bunky jumps off the bed and runs to the bedroom door. Just when Preacher comes out from under the bed, Bunky runs out of the bedroom only to be grabbed by Ronald who strangles her to death.
Later, Dan arrives home with Nell, Toni and Tom when they see cops all over the house. Lyla is fine as she told them about Ronald who was there, but the police apparently do not know about the murdered Bunky and Billy. Tom asks to stay for dinner and Dan also invites Detective Barnett to stay as well in case any more of Dan's escaped patients pay a visit. That evening, Dr. Bain is trying to get a hold of Dan on the phone, but he is getting no response. At nightfall, the Potter family is having dinner when Detective Barnett goes outside after hearing a noise. As the family and Tom watch from a window, a crossbow is fired and Barnett is hit and pinned to a tree. The group reacts quickly and begins making sure all the doors and windows of the house are locked, but they also learn that the phone is dead. Toni is too scared to go upstairs alone for she tells Dan that she once had a breakdown and spent time in a mental hospital as well. Tom goes upstairs instead and secures all the windows. When Dan looks back outside, he sees that Barnett's body is gone.
After an arrow is shot through a window, Tom and Dan barricade the front door with furniture as well as some of the windows as more crossbow bolts are shot through the windows as well. Meanwhile, Bain is told by the telephone operator that the phone line to the Potter residence is out of order. He sets out to the Potter residence. At the house, the group hears a car approaching and it is Bain who gets out and tells them that their phones are out of order. Dan and the others yell at Bain to get back in his car and drive away. After Dan yells at Bain that the "voyagers" are there, Bain decides that it would be best to try to talk with them and calls them out. Preacher comes out of hiding from the nearby bushes and Bain (who is just as insane as all of the other psychos) tries to talk with him to come back to the hospital. Preacher angrily responds by slashing off Bain's left ear with his Bowie knife
and then tries to get inside the front door when Dan opens it to try to help. Bain runs back to his car and Preacher turns back towards him and runs over beside the vehicle and yells "Romans 12.19: Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!" Preacher pulls out his axe and swings it. A minute later, Tom looks out of a window and sees that no one is inside Bain's car.
Dan tries to scream to the men outside and tells them that he did not murder Dr. Merton, but he gets no reply. Suddenly, Barnett's dead body is thrown by Ronald through a window, and the group stacks furniture against it as Hawkes shoots another bolt through the broken window. Toni thinks she sees another window open and when she goes to close it, a bloody body jumps through the window at her. But she only imagined it. When Dan asks her what is wrong, Toni says: "I'm getting sick again."
Minutes later, when the group smells smoke, Dan realizes that Preacher must have broken into the basement and is planning to set fire to the house. When Nell goes to look for the fire extinguisher, she finds the dead Bunky and Billy in a closet. Dan runs down to the basement, and struggles with Preacher and knocks him out with the fire extinguisher, and puts out the fire. Upstairs, Ronald bursts into the house from the kitchen back door and runs for the group with a baseball bat. Lyla ducks under a table and cuts his leg with a knife, and Tom swings a large cleaver into his back. Tom then picks up Ronald's baseball bat and beats the cleaver in further, and Ronald falls over dead.
Dan decides to make run for it and he runs outside to get to Bain's car to try to hotwire it to drive away and get help. Inside, Tom embraces a shaken Toni.... and blood begins to pour from his nose. Nell sees this and immediately realizes who Tom really is. Tom/Skagg wraps his hands around Toni's neck and begins to strangle her. Dan runs back inside when he hears the screaming and grabs Tom away from his sister. Lyla hands her mother the knife and Nell stabs Tom in the stomach, killing him. Suddenly, Preacher comes out of the basement and Dan struggles with him. Dan manages to twist the large knife out of Preacher's hand, and stabs him the chest with it then throws the fatally wounded Preacher back into the basement. As Dan, Nell, Lyla and Toni gather together for comfort, Hawkes appears standing in the kitchen doorway with his crossbow aimed right at them. "It's not just us crazy ones who kill", says Hawkes. Suddenly, the electricity comes back on and Hawkes sees Dr. Merton interviewed in a news report on television. Evidently upset, Hawkes breaks the TV and leaves the house and runs off into the night.
Hawkes walks through the town and passes the nightclub where the Sick Fucks are playing. He enters the club and beats up the doorman outside who insults him. In the club, Hawkes watches the punk rock band perform, when a girl whacked out on drugs walks up to Hawkes and says something to him. He pulls out his .45 caliber gun and points it at her neck. She looks at it and laughs, and so does Hawkes.
was inspired by the writings of R. D. Laing, who theorized that 'psychotics' were actually people having difficulty adapting to an already psychotic world. The character of Dr. Leo Bain was supposed to be something of a parody of Laing.
Jack Sholder
's original idea for the film was to have the story be about mental patients escaping during a blackout in NYC and the mafia
being used to stop them. Due to the low budget it was re-envisioned to take place on a smaller scale outside of New York.
It was producer Robert Shaye
that actually came up with the idea of the character of 'The Bleeder'. Shaye liked the idea of a crazed murderer who always hid his face and was revealed later in the film.
The scene where Ronald Elster grabs Bunky by the throat and lifts her off the floor was done without any special effect. Erland Van Lidth (Elster) was an incredible weight lifter and actually seized Carol Levy by the neck and lifted her for the shot.
Makeup effects artist Tom Savini
was brought in specifically to create the horrific monster apparition that Toni has. Savini achieved the startling effect by covering an actor in a concoction of soap and Rice Krispies
.
In the script Jack Palance
's character was supposed to kill the driver outside the Haven. However Palance refused to do the scene saying it wasn't necessary for him to be seen killing someone for the audience to know that he was a dangerous character. The scene was never shot.
The film was one of the first horror films to be made with Dolby Stereo
sound. The advanced sound level would often blow out the speaker systems in older theaters while the movie was being screened.
The first scene at Stumps with The Sick Fucks performing was shot silently without the music. The band and audience had to mimic their performances during the filming and the song 'Chop Up Your Mother' had to be dubbed in later on.
One of the members of The Sick Fucks ran into star Jack Palance
years later in the streets of New York. He said to Palance that he was one of The Sick Fucks in the film and Palance replied 'we were all sick fucks in that movie'.
and Friday the 13th. However since then the film has gained notoriety as being one of the more intelligent slasher-themed films of the 80's.
The film was banned in the UK for a time.
The film was released on DVD by Image Entertainment
for the first time in 2005.
In 2008 the indie rock band Lithium Walkers did a tribute song to the film entitled "Alone in the Dark". The groups drummer cites this as one of his favorite films. The song is part of an upcoming album called Midnite Matinee, a series of songs named after 80's horror films.
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
directed by Jack Sholder
Jack Sholder
Jack Sholder is a director, best known for his work in the horror film genre, notably Alone in the Dark, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, The Hidden, and Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies.In the DVD commentary of The Hidden Jack Sholder states that his favorite film director is Jean...
. It was the director's debut film and was the first motion picture to be released by New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
. The film's tagline is: "They're out... for blood! Don't let them find you--"
Plot
Dr. Dan Potter is the replacement for Dr. Harry Merton, a psychiatrist at Dr. Leo Bain's psychiatric havenPsychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
. Dr. Bain operates the haven through very lenient methods. He calls the patients "voyagers" and treats them kindly; he keeps the most dangerous voyagers on the 3rd floor contained with electrically-activated security mechanisms instead of bars, and only keeps one guard on duty.
The aforementioned 3rd floor patients (paranoid
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
former POW Frank Hawkes, pyromaniac preacher
Preacher
Preacher is a term for someone who preaches sermons or gives homilies. A preacher is distinct from a theologian by focusing on the communication rather than the development of doctrine. Others see preaching and theology as being intertwined...
Byron Sutcliff, obese child molester Ronald Elster, and homicidal
Homicidal
Homicidal is a 1961 thriller film produced and directed by the self-proclaimed "King of Showmanship", William Castle. Written by Robb White, the film stars Glenn Corbett, Patricia Breslin, Eugenie Leontovich, Alan Bunce, Richard Rust, and Joan Marshall...
maniac John "Bleeder" Skaggs) initially treat Dr. Potter with mixed hostility. At their first meeting, Hawkes nearly explodes at Dr. Potter as he leaves, but calms down before giving a reason for his outburst.
At night, however, Hawkes states to the others that "the new doctor killed Harry Merton, and now he wants to kill us". The others believe him (aside from Skaggs, who hides his face throughout the film, this time burying his head in his pillow), and agree to help him kill Dr. Potter. They plan to do this on the outside.
Ray Curtis, the sole guard on the 3rd floor, overhears the foursome's scheme and tells Dr. Potter about it, but Dr. Potter dismisses Curtis' fears as unwarranted. However, Curtis remains convinced of the danger.
One day, in the hospital's courtyard where Dr. Bain is counseling his patients, Sutcliff sets his coat on fire (using matches Dr. Bain gave him during his treatment) and Dr. Bain manages to quell Sutcliff's fit by threatening to "split him down the middle."
Meanwhile, Dr. Potter tries to talk with Frank Hawkes about his connection to Dr. Harry Merton, and about the plan Ray Curtis overheard. Hawkes reminds Dr. Potter that he shouldn't take Curtis' warnings seriously.
Another day, while waiting in Dr. Potter's office, Ronald Elster looks through the Dr. Potter's unopened mail to find his home address and sees a picture of the doctor's young daughter.
At the Dr. Potter household, Dan Potter lives with his free-spirited wife Nell and their precocious daughter Lila, as well as his sister Toni, who comes to visit following a successful treatment for a mental breakdown.
Toni takes Dan and Nell to see The Sick Fucks at a nightclub, much to Dan's displeasure. As they play the city's power shuts down. Dan at the time is glad. Meanwhile, the men on the 3rd floor wake up and begin to carry out their plan. Sutcliffe and Elster kill Curtis and the four escape in a night doctor's car. They drive to a store in the middle of a raid to pick up new clothes and weapons. Skaggs kills an innocent bystander by splattering out his insides and runs away, the others take the murdered man's van and drive off.
The next day, Dan arrives at the hospital to learn from Bain about the four escaped patients and of the people they killed. With the power still off from an apparent statewide power outage, Dan has to report to the police about the four maniacs on the loose. In a nearby neighborhood, Hawkes, Preacher, and Ronald are driving around and torment a bicycle messenger
Bicycle messenger
Bicycle messengers are people who work for courier companies carrying and delivering items by bicycle. Bicycle messengers are most often found in the central business districts of metropolitan areas...
and when the man mouths off to them, calling Hawkes an "asshole" the enraged Hawkes throws the van in reverse and plows into the bicycle messenger.
At Dan's house, Preacher arrives wearing the bicycle messenger's hat and uniform telling Nell that he has a telegram for the doctor. Nell offers to take it, but Preacher says that he will come back later. Nell is slightly spooked by Preacher's strange behavior. After Preacher leaves, Toni tells Nell to accompany her to an anti-nuclear protest that is going on in town.
A little later, after Toni and Nell leave, Lyla comes home to a vacant house, and Ronald is there, claiming to be her babysitter. Ronald is friendly towards Lyla, but she is a little unsettled by his strange behavior. Ronald suggests going to Lyla's room to show her how to make different origami
Origami
is the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, which started in the 17th century AD at the latest and was popularized outside Japan in the mid-1900s. It has since then evolved into a modern art form...
shapes.
Meanwhile, Toni and Nell are in jail having been arrested with dozens of other protesters. Toni meets a certain Tom Smith, one of those arrested with them during the demonstration. When it is time to make their phone calls, Tom lets Toni use his turn at the phone where she calls Dan at the hospital to tell them where they are and to bail them out. Dan then calls Bunky (Carol Levy), Lyla's real babysitter, to go over to his house to make sure that Lyla is okay. Bunky arrives at Dan's house and after looking around, finds Lyla asleep on her bed. Bunky then calls her boyfriend, Billy, and invites him to come on over.
Billy arrives a short while later and Bunky invites him up to the master bedroom so they can have sex. While making out on the bed, Bunky hears a noise coming from the closet and asks Billy to check it out. He is pulled under the bed and a knife is jabbed through the bed several times at Bunky who is able to dodge it. Bunky jumps off the bed and runs to the bedroom door. Just when Preacher comes out from under the bed, Bunky runs out of the bedroom only to be grabbed by Ronald who strangles her to death.
Later, Dan arrives home with Nell, Toni and Tom when they see cops all over the house. Lyla is fine as she told them about Ronald who was there, but the police apparently do not know about the murdered Bunky and Billy. Tom asks to stay for dinner and Dan also invites Detective Barnett to stay as well in case any more of Dan's escaped patients pay a visit. That evening, Dr. Bain is trying to get a hold of Dan on the phone, but he is getting no response. At nightfall, the Potter family is having dinner when Detective Barnett goes outside after hearing a noise. As the family and Tom watch from a window, a crossbow is fired and Barnett is hit and pinned to a tree. The group reacts quickly and begins making sure all the doors and windows of the house are locked, but they also learn that the phone is dead. Toni is too scared to go upstairs alone for she tells Dan that she once had a breakdown and spent time in a mental hospital as well. Tom goes upstairs instead and secures all the windows. When Dan looks back outside, he sees that Barnett's body is gone.
After an arrow is shot through a window, Tom and Dan barricade the front door with furniture as well as some of the windows as more crossbow bolts are shot through the windows as well. Meanwhile, Bain is told by the telephone operator that the phone line to the Potter residence is out of order. He sets out to the Potter residence. At the house, the group hears a car approaching and it is Bain who gets out and tells them that their phones are out of order. Dan and the others yell at Bain to get back in his car and drive away. After Dan yells at Bain that the "voyagers" are there, Bain decides that it would be best to try to talk with them and calls them out. Preacher comes out of hiding from the nearby bushes and Bain (who is just as insane as all of the other psychos) tries to talk with him to come back to the hospital. Preacher angrily responds by slashing off Bain's left ear with his Bowie knife
Bowie knife
A Bowie knife is a pattern of fixed-blade fighting knife first popularized by Colonel James "Jim" Bowie in the early 19th Century. Since the first incarnation was created by James Black, the Bowie knife has come to incorporate several recognizable and characteristic design features, although its...
and then tries to get inside the front door when Dan opens it to try to help. Bain runs back to his car and Preacher turns back towards him and runs over beside the vehicle and yells "Romans 12.19: Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!" Preacher pulls out his axe and swings it. A minute later, Tom looks out of a window and sees that no one is inside Bain's car.
Dan tries to scream to the men outside and tells them that he did not murder Dr. Merton, but he gets no reply. Suddenly, Barnett's dead body is thrown by Ronald through a window, and the group stacks furniture against it as Hawkes shoots another bolt through the broken window. Toni thinks she sees another window open and when she goes to close it, a bloody body jumps through the window at her. But she only imagined it. When Dan asks her what is wrong, Toni says: "I'm getting sick again."
Minutes later, when the group smells smoke, Dan realizes that Preacher must have broken into the basement and is planning to set fire to the house. When Nell goes to look for the fire extinguisher, she finds the dead Bunky and Billy in a closet. Dan runs down to the basement, and struggles with Preacher and knocks him out with the fire extinguisher, and puts out the fire. Upstairs, Ronald bursts into the house from the kitchen back door and runs for the group with a baseball bat. Lyla ducks under a table and cuts his leg with a knife, and Tom swings a large cleaver into his back. Tom then picks up Ronald's baseball bat and beats the cleaver in further, and Ronald falls over dead.
Dan decides to make run for it and he runs outside to get to Bain's car to try to hotwire it to drive away and get help. Inside, Tom embraces a shaken Toni.... and blood begins to pour from his nose. Nell sees this and immediately realizes who Tom really is. Tom/Skagg wraps his hands around Toni's neck and begins to strangle her. Dan runs back inside when he hears the screaming and grabs Tom away from his sister. Lyla hands her mother the knife and Nell stabs Tom in the stomach, killing him. Suddenly, Preacher comes out of the basement and Dan struggles with him. Dan manages to twist the large knife out of Preacher's hand, and stabs him the chest with it then throws the fatally wounded Preacher back into the basement. As Dan, Nell, Lyla and Toni gather together for comfort, Hawkes appears standing in the kitchen doorway with his crossbow aimed right at them. "It's not just us crazy ones who kill", says Hawkes. Suddenly, the electricity comes back on and Hawkes sees Dr. Merton interviewed in a news report on television. Evidently upset, Hawkes breaks the TV and leaves the house and runs off into the night.
Hawkes walks through the town and passes the nightclub where the Sick Fucks are playing. He enters the club and beats up the doorman outside who insults him. In the club, Hawkes watches the punk rock band perform, when a girl whacked out on drugs walks up to Hawkes and says something to him. He pulls out his .45 caliber gun and points it at her neck. She looks at it and laughs, and so does Hawkes.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Jack Palance Jack Palance Jack Palance , was an American actor. During half a century of film and television appearances, Palance was nominated for three Academy Awards, all as Best Actor in a Supporting Role, winning in 1991 for his role in City Slickers.-Early life:Palance, one of five children, was born Volodymyr... |
Frank Hawkes |
| Donald Pleasence Donald Pleasence Sir Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, was a British actor who gained more than 200 screen credits during a career which spanned over four decades... |
Dr. Leo Bain |
| Martin Landau Martin Landau Martin Landau is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest . He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space:1999... |
Byron 'Preacher' Sutcliff |
| Dwight Schultz Dwight Schultz William Dwight Schultz is an American stage, television, film actor, and voice artist. He is best known for his roles as Captain "Howling Mad" Murdock on the 1980s action show The A-Team, and as Reginald Barclay in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and the film Star Trek: First... |
Dr. Dan Potter |
| Erland van Lidth Erland Van Lidth De Jeude Erland van Lidth de Jeude was a Dutch-born actor who appeared in several Hollywood films, as well as being a wrestler, an opera singer bass-baritone, and also worked with computers. While his large size Erland van Lidth de Jeude (June 3, 1953 - September 23, 1987) was a Dutch-born actor who... |
Ronald 'Fatty' Elster |
| Deborah Hedwall | Nell Potter |
| Lee Taylor-Allan | Toni Potter |
| Phillip Clark | Tom Smith |
| Elizabeth Ward I | Lyla Potter |
| Brent Jennings | Ray Curtis |
| Frederick Coffin Frederick Coffin Frederick D. Coffin was an American film actor.-Early life:Coffin was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1943 to actress Winifred Deforest Coffin, and was one of five children. He was educated at Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, Ohio, where he was both a student and athlete. He began to study... |
Jim Gable |
| Phillip Clark | Skaggs aka The Bleeder |
Production
While writing the screenplay for Alone in the Dark, Jack SholderJack Sholder
Jack Sholder is a director, best known for his work in the horror film genre, notably Alone in the Dark, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, The Hidden, and Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies.In the DVD commentary of The Hidden Jack Sholder states that his favorite film director is Jean...
was inspired by the writings of R. D. Laing, who theorized that 'psychotics' were actually people having difficulty adapting to an already psychotic world. The character of Dr. Leo Bain was supposed to be something of a parody of Laing.
Jack Sholder
Jack Sholder
Jack Sholder is a director, best known for his work in the horror film genre, notably Alone in the Dark, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, The Hidden, and Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies.In the DVD commentary of The Hidden Jack Sholder states that his favorite film director is Jean...
's original idea for the film was to have the story be about mental patients escaping during a blackout in NYC and the mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
being used to stop them. Due to the low budget it was re-envisioned to take place on a smaller scale outside of New York.
It was producer Robert Shaye
Robert Shaye
Robert Kenneth Shaye , often referred to as Bob Shaye, is an American businessman, film producer, director and actor.-Early life:...
that actually came up with the idea of the character of 'The Bleeder'. Shaye liked the idea of a crazed murderer who always hid his face and was revealed later in the film.
The scene where Ronald Elster grabs Bunky by the throat and lifts her off the floor was done without any special effect. Erland Van Lidth (Elster) was an incredible weight lifter and actually seized Carol Levy by the neck and lifted her for the shot.
Makeup effects artist Tom Savini
Tom Savini
Thomas Vincent "Tom" Savini is an American actor, stuntman, director, award-winning special effects and makeup artist. He is known for his work on the Living Dead films directed by George A. Romero, as well as Creepshow, The Burning, Friday the 13th, The Prowler, and Maniac. He directed the 1990...
was brought in specifically to create the horrific monster apparition that Toni has. Savini achieved the startling effect by covering an actor in a concoction of soap and Rice Krispies
Rice Krispies
Rice Krispies is a breakfast cereal that was created by Clayton Rindlisbacher for the Kellogg company, and later marketed by Kellogg's in 1927 and released to the public in 1928...
.
In the script Jack Palance
Jack Palance
Jack Palance , was an American actor. During half a century of film and television appearances, Palance was nominated for three Academy Awards, all as Best Actor in a Supporting Role, winning in 1991 for his role in City Slickers.-Early life:Palance, one of five children, was born Volodymyr...
's character was supposed to kill the driver outside the Haven. However Palance refused to do the scene saying it wasn't necessary for him to be seen killing someone for the audience to know that he was a dangerous character. The scene was never shot.
The film was one of the first horror films to be made with Dolby Stereo
Dolby Stereo
Dolby Stereo, is the trade mark that Dolby Laboratories used for the various analogue stereo cinema sound formats that they produced.Two basic systems used this name. The first was the 'Dolby SVA' system used with optical soundtracks on 35mm film...
sound. The advanced sound level would often blow out the speaker systems in older theaters while the movie was being screened.
Music
In the original script the punk band that Toni drags Dan and Nell to see was named Nicky Nothing and the Hives. When The Sick Fucks, an actual punk group, landed the gig as the punk band for the film their real name was liked so much that they kept it for the film.The first scene at Stumps with The Sick Fucks performing was shot silently without the music. The band and audience had to mimic their performances during the filming and the song 'Chop Up Your Mother' had to be dubbed in later on.
One of the members of The Sick Fucks ran into star Jack Palance
Jack Palance
Jack Palance , was an American actor. During half a century of film and television appearances, Palance was nominated for three Academy Awards, all as Best Actor in a Supporting Role, winning in 1991 for his role in City Slickers.-Early life:Palance, one of five children, was born Volodymyr...
years later in the streets of New York. He said to Palance that he was one of The Sick Fucks in the film and Palance replied 'we were all sick fucks in that movie'.
Reception
The film came and went quietly upon theatrical release. It was dismissed as merely another slasher flick following the trend created by HalloweenHalloween (1978 film)
Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror film directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise. The film is set in the fictional midwestern...
and Friday the 13th. However since then the film has gained notoriety as being one of the more intelligent slasher-themed films of the 80's.
The film was banned in the UK for a time.
The film was released on DVD by Image Entertainment
Image Entertainment
Image Entertainment, Inc. is an independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming and film & television productions in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 250 exclusive CD titles in domestic release, and approximately 450...
for the first time in 2005.
In 2008 the indie rock band Lithium Walkers did a tribute song to the film entitled "Alone in the Dark". The groups drummer cites this as one of his favorite films. The song is part of an upcoming album called Midnite Matinee, a series of songs named after 80's horror films.